


Never Had to Lie

by sofonisba_found



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Demisexuality, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sexual Identity, mentions of past Steve/Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1958139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofonisba_found/pseuds/sofonisba_found
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Steve had gotten a chance to marry Peggy, he would have been living a dream.</p><p>That didn't mean that he hadn't had other dreams as well, ones he hid away.</p><p>(Until one day he finds out he never had to.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Had to Lie

**Author's Note:**

> soooooooo, i guess at some point i was just sort of overwhelmed by feelings about Steve and his loves, and decided that writing some fic was the only solution to deal with the feels. this is my first foray into this fandom, and i hope y'all enjoy it :) beta'd by the always wonderful pinetreekate, any remaining mistakes are my own. comments and legit con crit welcome.

Despite jabs from his teammates, Steve wasn’t nearly as unworldly and naïve as someone like Tony seemed to want to believe. 

Part of that was that though Steve still had a ways to go on catching up on every significant cultural event of the past seventy years, he had been very quick to learn how to use the modern tools at his disposal _(the internet was something he never could have imagined could exist, now he wondered at the ease of it)_ to give himself at least a semi-solid new base on what the world now was. Even actively working to catch up, he still hadn’t gotten around to watching every movie and television show on Netflix that Sam and the rest of the Avengers swore he needed to see _(and wasn’t that a list discordant enough that the algorithm basically just threw completely random recommendations at him)_ but he had caught up plenty well on basic history and cultural shifts, things like changes in language, terms that had once been the norm having become decidedly not. Like how the preferred terms had changed to Black or African American, that Oriental was straight out unless you were discussing rugs, and no calling any women a dame unless you were yearning for a dirty look. He had learned about feminism, and the successes and shortfalls of various equality movements, from the civil rights movement that he had slept through to the one happening right in front of his eyes with the homosexual community. 

That Tony thought the very concept of couples with matching parts would shock Steve was a bit of an insult, and had shown a distinct lack of historical knowledge on Tony’s part. Steve supposed that was the other part of the equation as to why so many seemed to think him innocent to an almost comical level, that each generation somehow always got it into their heads that certain things could only come about in their lifetime, especially things related to sex. And so Steve wasn’t going to lie and say that he hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed the dumbfounded look on Tony’s face _(along with long-suffering amusement from both Bruce and Rhodey)_ when Steve launched into a description of some of the more notable gay bars in his neighborhood, complete with tales of some of the characters, the flamboyant patrons that were a longshoremen by day and queens by night, that had achieved near legendary status amongst those in the know. And it so happened that after one of the club owners had noticed Steve sketching on his apartment stoop and invited him to work at his clubs and do sketches of the other patrons, _(queens and kings, drawn in their resplendent or dapper drag for a fee, pictures of themselves as they felt showed their true souls they could cherish,_ _but easier to deny or destroy than a photograph should needs arise)_ Steve was definitely someone who was in the know. 

So Steve knew plenty of stuff, and what he didn’t he set out to learn, because he knew he hadn’t caught up with everything, not nearly yet. 

Reading up online on fight for equality, for marriage, for protection under the law, for understanding, all things that he knew were too long coming but seemed impossible back in the old neighborhood where if you didn’t keep the cops paid off a raid was guaranteed, he learned about things that he hadn’t known about before. Or, maybe he had, maybe he had seen but not recognized, not had the understanding or words for. 

He had always thought you were either ‘normal’ _(old words, not right anymore, instead now straight, heterosexual)_ or you were a fairy _(no longer, now gay, homosexual)_. 

He hadn’t known there was a word for liking both. He hadn’t known it had been _allowed_ to like both, by whatever force or reasoning dictated those sorts of things, _(there always seemed to be a certain set of rules, for both in and outside of the clubs)_ but for him at least, it made a hell of a lot of sense. 

He had loved Peggy. He had been impressed as hell the first time he had met her, and that feeling had only grown and mingled with love and affection the longer he knew her. And though the visits to her now were painful, almost torturous, but in those moments that she was truly present, that she remembered, his heart felt at ease in a way it never did anymore, not since they took him out of the ice, at least for a few minutes. He loved Peggy, and he always would. 

But there had also _(always)_ been Bucky. 

Until Peggy, Steve had honestly thought that he was a fairy _(gay, homosexual)_ , and on top of that being unfortunate enough to have fallen in love with his best, and at the time, only real friend in the world. His best friend who would dance with a different dame _(woman)_ every Friday night while Steve either stood against the wall wondering if anyone could tell which of the dancers he was really jealous of, or stayed at home, wondering why if he had to be the way he was, and why it had to be Bucky instead of some of the other fairies _(gay men)_ who graced Steve with smiles both kind and heated when he drew their picture. 

But then he met Peggy and thought that maybe he truly had confused some deep and true brotherly love for romantic, having had no other experience with either before. He told himself that was what it must be even as the same deep contentment in his soul settled over him whenever he was with one or the other, even when his dreams, the type that left him hard and aching, would involve Peggy one night and Bucky the next _(and some nights all three of them together)_. He told himself that because he wanted to _marry_ Peggy, and it wouldn’t have been a lie like the marriage of that heel Albert at the club, who would gloat about how stupid his wife was, and how grateful she was that he never pushed for marital relations _(Steve had never liked Albert, not one bit, and even the other club patrons in their own sham marriages looked vaguely ashamed whenever he brought up his wife)_ . Or like Mary and Carol, having a tearful row in the back alley because Mary was getting married next Sunday to a man her parents picked out, and couldn’t tell them ‘no’ even as Carol shouted that she would never be happy living a lie. 

If Steve had gotten a chance to marry Peggy, he wouldn’t have been living a lie, he would have been living his dream. 

Only now could he admit that while it wouldn’t have been a lie, it wouldn’t have been the whole truth, and that maybe a part of him might always have felt things were a bit incomplete. 

He knows there must have been more people like him back in the old neighborhood _(bisexuals, there must have been more bisexuals)_ but maybe they were all just as confused as he was and thought that they had to choose, one or the other, normal _(straight)_ or a fairy _(gay)_ , and never breathe a word to another living soul that they could have feelings of lust and love for either a fella or a dame _(woman)._

_(to say nothing of modern day polyamory, even if Bucky had been into fellas Steve wasn’t all that sure how things would have gone between the three of them, but he couldn’t deny the appeal of that dream, tucked inside his head and taken out and turned around to comfort and torture himself simultaneously.)_

And until recently, in this new century where Steve was playing catch-up on everything from cookie dough ice cream to cat memes, his newly defined _(but not discovered)_ sexuality was more academic to him than anything else. A new team and new friends were all he needed for the foreseeable future. They were enough to help thaw the ice in his heart, enough for him to feel alive, feel some happiness, again. He wasn’t sure if it was in a state fit for much more than that anymore, and frankly he wasn’t sure if he wanted it. 

But then there was the resurgence of Hydra, the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Bucky above him, arm raised to strike, while Steve promised he would be with him until the end of the line. And then he was falling, as he knew he always would fall, around Bucky, one way or the other. 

* 

Steve’s bisexuality had swiftly become less academic and more repressed in nature once Bucky broke through the bulk of the Winter Soldier programming that Hydra had forced upon him for decades while Steve slept. The first small smile to grace Bucky’s face that came off as genuine instead of a uneasy mimicry had sent a burst of joy through Steve, along with the sudden urge to kiss that grin and feel it curve against his own lips. 

Things only got worse for Steve on that front while everything else around him seemed to get better. 

As the weeks went by, and Bucky became less and less a living weapon with moments of confusion, almost heartbreakingly uncertain that he could be anything other than the ‘asset’ ever again, and more and more a person, Steve became accustomed to the feeling of happiness and contentment warring with the sensation of his heart being trapped in an ever-tightening vise. 

Because maybe the person coming back to life in front of him wasn’t entirely the Bucky that Steve had grown up with, or even fought beside _(Steve was not what he had been at those times either)_ , but he loved _(not philia but eros, it was clear now, he couldn’t pretend otherwise anymore)_ this new iteration of Bucky as much as he had any other. 

And before it had been bad enough, seeing Bucky out with dames _(women)_ knowing that that was the way things were, knowing that what Steve felt was a thing to be hidden from both him and the whole world. But now that it was more or less accepted to love who you did _(he saw an interview with a Scottish actor talking about his previous marriage to a woman, his current marriage to a man, and how both of them were truths. Steve had bought tickets to the play he was in, gone in disguise in the hopes that he wouldn’t have to deal with people asking him how Captain America felt seeing a play with singing Nazis. He had liked it more than he had thought he would)._ It meant that he was now just lying to his friends, lying to Bucky, for his own selfish reasons rather than out of ugly necessity. 

He was lying so that he could keep what he had. Bucky was getting better, but on some levels he was still fragile, and Steve didn’t know what a century-old lie, even one of omission, would mean to him. He knew Bucky, any Bucky, would never hold it against him for being bisexual. But whenever he tried to imagine his reaction if he knew Steve loved him, he could never think too long on it, worst and best case scenarios both equally unrealistic, but still all he could envision. _(Bucky would never tell Steve he disgusted him and to get out of his life for this. But Steve also knew Bucky would he never say he loved Steve back.)_

He would never put Bucky in the position knowing that they couldn’t give each other what they wanted _(needed)_ , just like he had almost a century ago. Actions meant more than thoughts, it was easier to continue to pretend to the world ( _but not himself, he couldn’t to himself)_ that Peggy was the only romantic love of his life, that he loved Bucky like a brother and that was that. 

Most of the time it was easier at least. 

But something else about the modern age that he had to adjust too was people being even more incapable of minding their own business, something he would have thought impossible having grown up with gossip floating in from stoops and fire escapes every night. 

One point in the past’s favor, at least back then everyone had had the decency to gossip behind your back instead of sticking their noses directly into every little sexual and emotional crisis. 

“So,” Sam said as he and Steve stretched in preparation for their run, where they would start and finish together, though in between Steve would take in the scenery at a brisker pace. “You know I _hate_ to pry…” 

“You say as you prepare to pry…” Steve trailed off with a grin, giving Sam permission to go on _(would he have if he had known what he was about to ask?)_. 

“Did you and Barnes have a thing back in the day? Cause if you did, you know I don’t give a damn, and neither does anyone else that matters, except for how they placed their bets in the pool. But if the bets on ‘yes’ were right…I do want to remind you that you can share shit like that nowadays, with your friends at least,” Sam said, keeping his tone light and friendly, but also utterly sincere. 

“How many betting pools do you guys have going on Bucky and me anyway? I know there was the one about my reaction to sushi, and one about when Bucky would cut his hair,” Steve asked in response, knowing that Sam was just trying to be supportive about what he thought the situation was, but pretending wasn’t easy to stop once you got started. 

“I think he’s going to hold off from cutting it just long enough to screw all of us over, then bam, buzzcut,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “And thank god your job of being the personification of the American ‘can-do’ spirit doesn’t entail any of the subtle spy stuff, because that evasion was so obvious it was almost insulting, really, man.” 

“Hey, I can be subtle,” Steve protested. 

“Again, right there like a brick to my face, that’s how subtle you’re being about this right now,” Sam said with a laugh, obviously amused at whatever expression had come over Steve’s face _(Steve supposed it must have been closer to affronted than heartsick if Sam was laughing)_. 

“Sam…” 

“No, no, I’m sorry, I’ll drop it, okay?” Sam said and returned to stretching out his hamstrings. 

“Thanks,” said Steve, and he could have left it right there _(he couldn’t, he really couldn’t, he didn’t know why, what compelled him, but he just couldn’t)_ but instead he asked- 

“What made you think that anyways?” 

“Well,” Sam said slowly, as if he was being careful not to spook Steve, “there’s a few things that people, and by people I mean every single one of us, might notice being around the two of you all the time, certain looks, and then somebody’s asking some questions and we all wonder why none of us seriously thought of the possibility before…” 

“We didn’t have a thing but I wanted to,” Steve blurted, his mouth moving of its own volition even as his heart clenched, his lips and throat having decided on catharsis independent of the rest of him. “And I could never tell him that, and then there was Peggy and, and I loved them both, Sam, I loved them both so much, but now Peggy’s lived her life and I still can’t tell him.” 

It had all come out in a rush, and now Steve was left feeling a tight ache in his chest, but also an odd lightness at having finally told someone. 

“Steve,” Sam said, looking as taken aback at the unexpected onslaught of honesty as Steve was at having supplied it. “Man, it doesn’t have to be like that.” 

“I can’t put this on Bucky. I wouldn’t do it back then, and I especially can’t do it now.” 

“Explain that thinking to me again? What makes it even worse to say now, I mean, I know he’s not exactly who he was and he’s still trying to get his head straightened out after all that was done to him, but so far honesty has been pretty damn good for his recovery. And it’s not like you would have to worry about it being illegal,” Sam said, attempts at stretching completely abandoned. 

“Somehow that it _is_ allowed now makes it worse,” Steve said, committing to honesty now that he had gotten started. “Back then I told myself I couldn’t for his own safety, and then when I met Peggy I told myself that I had just confused my feelings about him because it was easier even though they were virtually the same. I can’t tell myself those lies anymore, but…” Steve swallowed and searched for the right words. “It is very easy for me to jump out of a plane, to face a room full of bad guys with guns, or an alien invasion of New York, in the sense that I know I can do something to help. It’s not hard for me to be brave in situations like that. But to face losing what I have, do you understand?” 

“You know Barnes wouldn’t hate you for it no matter what,” Sam said gently. 

“Just because I know that with every part of me doesn’t mean it doesn’t terrify me. Not so brave, right?” Steve asked, feeling his shame wash over him _(can’t pretend his lies are for anyone else but himself now)_. 

“No, man, I get it, you’re not the first person I’ve met who would rather face pants-wetting peril than make a heartfelt confession. And not that you have to, man, I’m not here to make you out yourself.” 

“Yeah, I know that, Sam,” Steve said. 

“But I am gonna tell you one more thing, and then take off first while you’re gobsmacked so I can be in the lead for a least a few seconds,” Sam said, starting to jog in place. 

“What’s that?” 

“The first one to ask those questions about you and Barnes having been sweethearts? Wasn’t any of us. It was Barnes, saying he felt something, thought he remembered something, but didn’t really want to ask you direct, probably because he’s scared just the same as you.” 

Sam took off running, leaving Steve standing by himself as he replayed what Sam had said in his mind _(and it gave him hope, but such selfish hope)_ before he made his feet start to move, catching up to and passing Sam within thirty seconds. 

He, of course, let Sam know he was coming up on his left. 

* 

Steve wanted to put off talking to Bucky, he wanted to wait until he was sure he wasn’t misinterpreting what Sam said, until he was sure of what he would say, but he also knew that would never happen. Instead, after his run he let the momentum from his conversation with Sam carry him until he was at Bucky’s door. 

All he had to do was knock _(he had broken down doors with ease before)_. All he had to do was knock. 

When he finally did knock the sound of it was unfathomably sharp and abrupt to his ears, despite the fact that he was _(ostensibly)_ in control of the force of the knock. 

Bucky called out from within that he was coming, and Steve unconsciously relaxed into parade rest while he waiting for him to come to the door, surrendering to muscle memory for the moment even as his heart pounded in a way that felt like it would have burst straight out of his frail pre-serum chest. 

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said as he opened the door, a smile on his face that didn’t quite match the memory but suited him just fine _(more than fine)_. “We haven’t seen each other for about twenty hours, did you miss me too much already?” he said, stepping back and gesturing for Steve to come inside. He walked over to the couch, Steve following as if on a tether, and plopped down on it with a careless grace. Steve sat in the overstuffed chair kitty-corner to the couch, separating them with upholstery, but the furniture still positioned close enough that Steve could lean over and ruffle Bucky’s long hair if he wanted _to (he wanted to do many things involving Bucky, all too close to the surface. Hence, the chair and not the coach)_. 

“You know how it is, somewhere along the line your ugly mug just grew on me somehow,” Steve replied, falling back into old patterns of banter _(truths)_. 

“I know my mind resembles Swiss cheese as much as anything else now, but I’m pretty sure the word you want is ‘handsome’. Yeah, definitely sure that’s the word you’re looking for.” 

_(truths)_

“Well, someone’s gotta keep you from getting a head swelled up enough to mess up that handsome face, and I guess I gotta be the one to keep you in line,” Steve said, relishing in the ease of the back-and-forth with Bucky, even as he felt drawn as tight as one of Clint’s bow strings. 

“Since when have you ever kept me in line?” Bucky asked with another new/old grin. “Because between what I can recall and plenty of _current_ firsthand experience, any lines to do with you ends with you saying ‘to hell’ with them and getting us both into a mess of trouble.” 

“It’s not like I go looking for any, you know that, Buck,” Steve replied. 

“Eh, maybe you never went lookin’ but once you found it you never seemed to be inclined to take the easy way out,” Bucky said, lobbing a soft slug with his right arm at Steve’s shoulder. 

“That’s not exactly true…” 

“Nah, I’m not buying it. Things are getting clearer upstairs every day, and even if some parts never get any less patchy I still think something as rare as you not going out on a limb or fighting to the bitter end would stick out.” 

“Well, to be fair you weren’t around for the one time that was after…I mean I know they called it heroics, but-” 

“No, Steve,” Bucky said sharply _(it had been quickly established that Bucky did not like Steve to talk about the train, and when he found out, the plane)_. 

“Ok,” Steve said, leaving it at that, and at a temporarily loss for how to continue, having seemingly derailed the flow of conversation. 

But Bucky was sharp, and Bucky wasn’t shy, and got things back on track by asking; 

“So ‘the one’ time we ain’t gonna talk about…saying it like that makes it sound like it wasn’t the only time you think that you took that type of route,” Bucky’s eyes went soft looking at Steve. “Not that I believe any of it by the way.” 

“Well some might call lies the coward’s way out,” Steve said, keeping his gaze on Bucky, the urge to shy away fading the closer he go to confessing. “Even lies of omission can be cowardly.” 

Bucky looked just about as pleased with that turn of the conversation as he had with the mention of the plane, though it was an odd sort of tension instead of anger that stole over his face. 

“Goddamnit, Steve, I know you think you’re supposed to be perfect now, I know you _always_ had these standards for yourself that no human could ever live up to, but you don’t have to be a saint, everyone lies sometimes. Hell, sometimes a lie is kinder to someone you care about than the truth,” Bucky took a deep breath, his eyes flitting closed momentarily as if in pain. “Sometimes it’s to protect them.” 

“What if it’s only to protect yourself? Wouldn’t that be cowardly?” Steve asked, unable to read Bucky’s face as well as he once had, old tells gone with new ones he had yet to learn having taken their place. But what he could divine from his expression, any unhappiness there, seemed to be directed inward rather than at Steve. 

“Steve, I-” 

“I love you Bucky,” Steve said, plain and simple, no more dancing _(and his heart felt like a stone even as it soared, free, free, free_ ). “I loved the you who walked beside me with scraped knees and busted knuckles, who tried to sneak more food onto my plate when you thought I wasn’t looking to make sure I ate enough, who called me a punk, who watched my back in the war and made me feel like I deserved to lead our men. 

“And,” Steve plowed on before Bucky could interrupt, could say that wasn’t him _(was and wasn’t, to Steve)_ “I love you now, I love you with your new smiles and your new scars, and the way you know how to mess with the rest of the team because they have trouble figuring out if you’re joking, and how you get real still when you’re concentrating, and so many other thing from back then and now that are all mixed together in who you are right this moment. 

“I love you. Romantically. Sexually. And I lied to you every damn day by omission because I was afraid you would hate me, and if not, even the kindest rejection from you would kill the tiny stupid kernel of hope I had that things could be…it was easy to pretend. That is the path I’ve been taking for years.” 

“But,” Bucky said, his voice sounding scraped raw. “You loved Peggy. Romantically. Sexually. I know that, knew that, I’m _sure_ I knew that…” 

“That doesn’t mean that I didn’t love you just the same,” Steve said quietly. “But it was safer to admit that I loved only Peggy like that, because she was a woman, because she loved me that way back, because-” 

“You saying I never loved you, Stevie? You saying I don’t?” Bucky asked, his voice still rough, his face stony, the implication that he didn’t care about Steve clearly upsetting him. Steve hastened to correct, because he thought he had made it clear, that wasn’t what he had meant at all _(he had always known Bucky loved him, always, always, he had always just been so sure that it was a different sort of love)._

“Not, like I said Buck, not like that, not like you wanna hold me tight and kiss me. I know you care, but you were always with dames, with _women_ , I don’t expect anything from you, and I’m sorry, just-” 

“Steve, I was always with dames…” Bucky said, trying to interrupt. 

“It’s so different now, and it’s harder to justify lying, to myself and you, you’ve had so many people mess with your head and lie to you, Bucky-” 

“Steve, I was always with dames and you were with _Peggy,_ think about what you’ve been saying, how can you still be thinking it was only you after…after _everything,_ Steve!” Bucky all but launched himself up off the couch and was now standing in front of Steve looking down at him, hurt and frustration plain on his face. “Yeah I liked girls plenty, I remember that, but I also remember how much I loved _you._ And for awhile I wasn’t sure if we had been together or if I had just wanted it so damn much it felt nearly real inside my head,but back then, if I had thought you would have me, if I thought I wouldn’t have been putting another target on your back for bullies, I would have done a hell of a lot more than just slide in under the blankets with you to help keep warm in the winter!” 

Steve wanted to talk, he really should talk, but instead he sat there, his mouth hanging open enough to catch flies _(even as he had let himself grasp on to a glimmer of hope he really hadn’t, hadn’t believed it, but now Bucky, Bucky was saying what Steve had been sure was too impossible to dream)._

“If you can love both me and girls then how the hell did you become so dead set on the idea that it was only you? That I couldn’t like the look and feel of a girl but also love you, love you _romantically, sexually,_ you got an answer for that?” 

Steve couldn’t shake the thought that his current perspective, looking up at Bucky while he basically called him an idiot was oddly nostalgic, before putting past mistakes behind him and surging up to stand eye to eye with Bucky, and reaching up to take hold of Bucky’s face and pulling him in for a kiss. 

Steve was hyper-aware of everything, the feel of Bucky’s skin and stubble beneath his palms, the brush of Bucky’s hair against his knuckles, the hum of the AC, the edge of the chair pressing into the back of his legs as Bucky had been crowding him, no room to move forward. 

And all of that save for that which involved _Bucky_ faded away to a background hum once Bucky started kissing him back. 

_(and kissing him, kissing him, kissing him back.)_

* 

Some time later on, after Steve and Bucky had politely declined the offer to be the Grand Marshals for that year’s Pride Parade, with the caveat that they would reconsider next year were the organizer’s still interested, Steve learned some more new terms, ones like ‘demisexual’ and ‘biromantic’. 

One night in bed Steve was musing aloud to a half asleep Bucky _(sadly wiped out from a mission with Natasha, not sex)_ about how he thought that those terms might suit him better than bisexual, looking back on things with new eyes. 

At that Bucky grumbled and rolled over from where he had been curled up on his side, reaching out to yank Steve down into a tight embrace. He gave Steve a quick buss on the chin, and then mumbled into his skin, the close and intimate contact making Steve feel at home in his soul. 

“Steve, whatever you want to say to the world to define yourself is all up to you. If it makes you happy and feels right to say you’re this or that, I’ll agree to whatever you say. But I can’t say I care all that much whether you wanna call yourself gay or bi or freaking Bucky-sexual, at least not past saying the right one makes you happy. All I care about is you and me are together, you get that?” 

“Yeah, Buck, I got it,” Steve replied, earning a satisfied hum from Bucky as he loosened his hold on Steve just enough to rearrange themselves in an embrace more suitable for sleeping. 

Steve had been sure of and confused about the exact same things over the years: new words and terms giving him an opportunity to define himself _(normal, fairy, straight, gay, bisexual, polyamorous, demisexual, biromantic)._ And after all of the years of not knowing that the way he felt was more common than he could have imagined, years of lying, out of both fear and habit, to the world even when it was safer than it had been, it was a true comfort to be able to say that this is what he is. 

But even if he was never quite sure what he should call himself, he could now embrace whatever he was. 

He had loved Peggy and always would. 

He loved Bucky, and always would, and was lucky enough to hold him tight, skin to skin, night after night, and feel his heartbeat beneath his fingertips, the pulse traveling up to Steve’s own heart, lulling him to sleep. 


End file.
